turning myself in...

I think my confession would make some of the girls on my board gasp- Amelia is never going to learn to breastfeed. I talked to 5, count them 5, lactation consultants in the hospital who all told me different things- one who told me to feed my baby through a SYRINGE!!!! We even went to the lc yesterday and you know when my little booger is there with an lc she can latch on and eat like a champ. We came home yesterday and the lc had told me not to give her another bottle (before my milk came in i was offering the breast and then pumping and giving what was left and a couple of times had to add a little formula-shhhh) and that she would cry for a couple of days and then get over it and go back to the breast... I was all gung ho for this until we got home and she actually not just cried but screamed for about 7 hours (only stopping to sleep and latch for 5 minutes every now and then). By the time James' got home i was frazzled. We talked about it and though we both really want this to work we realize that not every baby is meant to be a champion breastfeeder and that as long as she's getting the breast milk we will be happy but that neither of us want our child to go hungry just to force her to do something. I mean I go back to work in 10 weeks anyway and she'll have to be almost strictly bottle then anyway, so trying to force her back onto the breast when i'm only going to take her off of it seems impractical. I guess I'm just trying to convince myself that I'm not a horrible mother because this isn't working for us. I will continue to offer the nursing first but can't put myself or the baby through the torture of forcing her back on. Allowing my child to go hungry goes against every instinct I have even the one that tells me that I should be nursing. So there, don't tell on me because you all know some of the girls on our board would go off, but that is my big secret.